The Last Time We Met - By Lily Lang Page 0,31
her feeling bereft and alone. But he merely went to his washstand and wet a handkerchief to bring back to her. He cleaned her tenderly, then he climbed in beside her and drew her once again into his arms, his large biceps bulging as he wrapped them closely around her.
For a long while they were silent. Miranda, resting her head against his chest, listened to the slow, steady beat of his heart and felt a bone-deep contentment she had not known since childhood. She had no wish to sleep, needing only to savor this moment. He had made her his, and for this one perfect, evanescent space in time, he was hers as well.
Not wishing to destroy the peace of the moment, but needing to know, she asked in a low tone, “How did you escape the hulks?”
Behind her, he tensed, while his arms loosened around her. For a moment she thought he would not respond.
“I had been in the hulks for two years,” he said at last. “It was two years of hell I shall never forget.”
“Tell me.”
“It isn’t fit for your ears.”
“If you could live through it, I can stand to hear about it.”
“You can’t imagine what it was like,” he said after another moment. “The darkness, the filth, the stench, the God awful everlasting gnawing of the rats. There were constant outbreaks of typhus and cholera. During the day we were put to hard labor on the docks; at night we were chained to our bunks to prevent escape. We were constantly being flogged or placed in heavy irons for the most trivial offenses. There was never anything to eat or drink.”
She made a small sound and pressed a kiss to the biceps that encircled her. She felt his arms tighten around her.
“Then, one night, before we could be chained to our beds after a day at the docks, a fight broke out between several of the other convicts. In the pandemonium I managed to jump overboard, and by some miracle no one noticed me go over. I was too weak to even swim to shore; I simply clung to a piece of wood and let the current sweep me down river. The next morning, a man saw me and jumped in to save me.”
“Who was he?”
“Oliver Harvey, actually. He brought me home, and his wife nursed me for a month until I was strong enough to find work on the docks. But the work was sparse, so I went to the gambling hells to earn money. One night, I sat across from a bored young marquess who had been seeking some entertainment in the stews. By morning I had won a hundred thousand pounds from him at hazard.”
Miranda was nearly speechless. “You won a hundred thousand pounds in a single night?”
He shrugged lightly. “Great quantities of money often change hands at a gambling table,” he said. “That’s when I first decided to start a club of my own.”
“I can’t imagine the marquess was very pleased with you.”
“He thought it was highly amusing, actually, and became one of the first patrons of the club,” said Jason.
They were silent for a long moment. Then Miranda turned her head and kissed his shoulder softly.
“I’m very proud of all you have accomplished,” she whispered.
He did not respond. Instead, he lifted himself so that he was once again on top of her, and kissed her long and deep. His hands moved slowly, leisurely down her body, lingering at the sensitive peaks of her breasts, the flare of her hips. She arched into him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck, but he pushed her hands away, his lips moving lazily down her throat, to her collarbone, and then lower, until he could nip at the curve of her breasts. When he pressed himself into her again, there was no pain and no resistance, only a tender, precious sense of familiarity.
Afterwards, he held her close, and she slept dreamlessly in his arms. But when she woke again in the morning, he was gone.
Chapter Four
As the elegant traveling carriage drew down the wide, tree-lined boulevard leading to Thornwood Hall, Miranda studied Jason’s face. His only reaction was a faint tightening of the jaw, but otherwise, he remained as impassive and silent as he had been the entire drive from London to Hertfordshire.
After giving her a succinct summary of his meeting with Laurence—which, what with one thing and another, he had not actually told her all of the previous night—he had spent most of